


House and Home

by Hambone



Category: Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Arguments, Friendship, Gen, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 22:25:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2126787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hambone/pseuds/Hambone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blackarachnia returns to Cybertron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	House and Home

**Author's Note:**

> Request by hypetrainofthought on my Tumblr! Enjoy!

“Look, I don’t like the idea of this going wrong any more that you do-”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“-But I really, honestly don’t think it will. Things have changed.”

“Have they?”

Blackarachnia was well within her right to be skeptical. She hadn’t set foot on Cybertron in so many stellar cycles that she wasn’t even sure if it would feel like home anymore. This was important, though. Optimus had promised her it would be okay.

Not that a promise from a naïve little Autobot bridge builder held much bearing.

“Look, you have good reason to not trust a gesture made by the Council,” he took her hand and she let him, “or even me. I just…they mean it this time. I know they do. They owe me too much right now.”

She was a little surprised to hear him speak of debts like he would actually enforce them. Optimus was sweet but soft. That’s why she was so nervous on the first place. Back when she knew him, he would have been happy to believe a nice lie if it was told to him with enough sincerity. Or perhaps that was just her memory of him, twisted into something petty and small and stupid by years of anger. Things had changed so drastically now that the idea made her duck her helm a little in private shame, which Optimus seemed to take as a sign of fear.

He squeezed her hand and she looked up at him, mouth twisted into a humorless smile. He was trying his best. He returned the look but his optics were serious, another sight she was yet unused to. So much had changed in her absence.

“Three kliks to arrival.”

The voice over the intercom was grainy and somewhat clipped sounding, an intentional intonation. Though it meant nothing, it was enough to make her bristle again, remembering exactly why she was so opposed to coming here in the first place. Optimus had taken stellar cycles to convince her, and she had really only given in due to his persistence. She had no love for the society that had made her fear return. When they felt the shudder of the ship’s landing gear extending, it brought her nothing but discomfort. A cursory glance at Optimus showed he was at least taking this seriously enough to look tense. Good. Nasty as it might have been, she was a little bitter about this regardless of her feelings towards the mech and she was glad he was at least sharing some of her discomfort.

Blackarachnia had to squint when the bay doors opened, the light of the crystalline towers more than she was used to. It seemed like the secondary victory over the Decepticons had brought about an age of even more decadent rapture than before. The Autobot in her was amazed by the new construction but outwardly she sneered. Though she had only spent a small amount of her life with the Decepticons, she had come to appreciate their jealousy and distain of the affluence. Chaar was not a happy place.

Her sneer quickly turned to outright anger when her optics recalibrated enough to draw her attention down to the waiting party ready to receive them.

“I’m not doing this. Not if he’s here!”

Optimus seemed to have anticipated her wrath and grabbed her arm, both steadying her and keeping her prisoner to his words just a moment longer.

“Look, we need him here or else we can’t go through with this! Things have changed but there’s still…diplomacy.”

Roughly, Blackarachnia ripped her arm from his grasp, but she did not attempt to leave again, instead crossing her arms and cocking her helm with kingly superiority.

“Fine. Diplomacy. I’m not dealing with him after.”

He relaxed as she spoke, but his optics still shone with a bit of sadness. It didn’t matter, she told herself. This wasn’t’ about him.

“He’s not as bad as he acts.”

“Oh, well that makes everything better, doesn’t it?”

Her sarcasm dripped like venom and Optimus shied away from it.

“He’s just confused,” he tried, “he needs time to-!”

“He told me I was _better off dead.”_

She knew she had won, at least in some capacity, when Optimus couldn’t meet her glare. His fingers crawled into and out of fists against his thighs, a habit he still retained from their days as cadets.

“Okay. Okay.”

They descended the ramp together, the crowd of diplomats arcing open to meet them. Despite her vicious appearance, Blackarachnia was scared. She trusted Optimus- she did –but she didn’t trust the bots here as far as she could throw them. Sentinel, decked out in his Magnus attire despite her having heard he was only there in a temporary capacity, thrust his bulbous chin in the air. They eyed each other as if they were old enemies and not…

“Alright, so we’re all here?”

She didn’t recognize the other members of the council but they certainly didn’t seem glad to see her. Not that she had expected that. At least, by this point, her bizarre appearance didn’t seem to put them off as much as she had expected. Optimus assured her that she was not the first technorganic to return to their society, as apparently the outer reaches were rife with them, but she was still surprised to see how jaded their optics were as they passed over her. Stiffening noticeably, she pursed her lips in a way she knew was appealing, flashing a glance around the whole group.

“So, what _exactly_ is it that I need to do here, hmm?”

Optimus touched her back, supportive. She twitched away but resented that she felt the need to.

“Cataloguing, identification; all that good stuff.”

Sentinel spoke with barely concealed emotion, although whether it was disgust or something darker she could not tell.

“Good. Shouldn’t take too much time.”

As a group they turned and made their way to the lift into the Metroplex. The enclosed space made her even more uncomfortable but she remained steady, helm high. It only took a few deep ventilations to remind herself that spiders were at their best in the dark.

The court was large, but not as large as she had grown used to. The emptiness of the seating could probably be attributed to some of the illusion; the group she had shown up with and three other bots, one of which was an Autotrooper, were the only ones there. Occupying the frontal seats of the room, everyone settled in the way only dusty old bots could, shuffling and coughing. Taking her own place where it was indicated, Blackarachnia set her back strut straight as a girder. Optimus was right behind her, and though she remained mostly stationary she managed to flick him a look with two of her optics.

The meeting was long. Longer than it needed to be. Incomprehensibly long, honestly, and about halfway through her fear had turned to annoyance which had eventually bled away to pure boredom. There was nothing that cured nerves like mind numbing monologuing about informational data by bots halfway into the scrap heap. Questions were asked, pictures were taken. The only point of interest, besides her amazement that there were beings physically capable of being this bland, was Sentinel. Sentinel Magnus, if you were being politically correct, but Blackarachnia had no intention of doing so. In all honesty she was amazed anyone had ever looked at him and thought he would make a good successor to anything.

“This way, please. We’ll need some pictures for the files.”

“Some pictures.”

Implication laid heavy in her voice and Optimus shot her a glance. Shrugging, she followed them, able to recognize just the hint of a smile on his lips and knowing she’d won without trying. Still, the pictures were pushy and invasive and she felt soured again afterwards, the final signatures and stamps and seals all dealt with in quick and dour kliks. Very dour.

“Ahh, Primus!”

She threw her arms into the arm, stretching joints that felt as if they’d near rusted over from sitting so long.

“I thought I knew torture, but that was something else!”

Optimus laughed.

“Yeah, Autobot business is really tough stuff. You were very brave.”

She elbowed him in the gut and he doubled over, still managing to wheeze out a chuckle.

“Haw haw. You always did have a sharp sense of humor.”

She was relaxed, though, or at least as much as she ever was. They would have to return to the towers within a few cycles, but until then she had some time to reacquaint herself with the marvels of Iacon. The new Iacon, really. Everything was so different from how she remembered it. For a brief moment she worried she wouldn’t be able to find her way around.

“So, is there any chance I’m gonna be able to ditch you?”

Optimus was regaining some small amount of posture, bright with humor.

“Probably not. Not unless you’d rather be escorted by Autotroopers.”

She sneered.

“Point taken. So, what do you do around here these days?”

Sighing, Optimus scanned the city briefly. Blackarachnia watched his optics focus, the way his mouth hung open as he caught his breath.

“You’re probably hungry. Want something to drink?”

He reached towards her shoulder as if to clasp it but then thought better of it. The way he dusted it aimlessly against his thigh was more embarrassed than anything, and she realized he did not pull away in revulsion but in consideration for her touchiness.

“It’s on me?”

“What a hero you are.”

Swooning falsely, she leaned towards him, allowing the moment of contact he had shied away from. A subtle but, hopefully, meaningful gesture. It was meaningful to her, at least.

“I hope you know what you’re getting into.”

Apparently he had not. By her fifth cube she could see him scratching at the multi-use port cover on his arm nervously, and she knew he was stewing over their tab. Knocking back the last few drops she slammed the empty glass on the table, gasping.

“How are you not getting overcharged?”

Her optics widened playfully.

“I know my limits.”

Optimus bared his teeth in a false smile.

“Alright, alright. You’re not overcharged. But if you don’t cool it, my credit will be.”

Leaning back in her seat and crossing her legs, Blackarachnia surveyed the room. In all honestly she was still surprised to not be the center of attention, for her looks or otherwise. There had been a few curious glances at first but they were largely being ignored now. It was not a feeling she was used to, and despite all her efforts to make herself remarkable in her own right, Blackarachnia found it was oddly refreshing.

“Come on, lightweight, one more round. For us both, I mean, if you ever decide to stop nursing that thing and put it out of its misery.”

Optimus made a face, finally downing the remnants of his first cube.

“I like taking my time.”

“That’s not how I remember it.”

“I’m surprised you remember it at all.”

They both turned, Blackarachnia unconsciously arming herself, teeth bared. Sentinel crossed his arms, frowning that same bitter frown of his. Optimus gripped the table.

“The meeting doesn’t continue for two more cycles.”

“I know,” Sentinel sniffed, as if annoyed, “I’m just checking up on you.”

“Following us, you mean.”

Blackarachnia turned on him fully, remaining seated but somehow managing to make her reclined position look defensive. Sentinel acted shocked.

“I was not following you!”

“You were! You were and now you’re lying about it!”

Optimus stood up, exasperated.

“What, you can’t trust us to get a meal in peace?”

“It isn’t because she’s…the way she is,” Sentinel puffed out his chest, pointing across the table over Blackarachnia’s helm, “it’s because she was a Decepticon! A known traitor!”

Everyone in the room was watching now, even if they acted like they weren’t. Sentinel’s appearance itself was enough to draw attention, but he could hardly have projected his complaints louder if he’d had a megaphone installed. Optimus noticed.

“Look, can we not do this here?”

“Why, you have something to hide?”

The most infuriating thing about it was that it was clear that the fight had little to do with her. Sentinel was, as he always had been, more preoccupied with his own issues than hers. She had been like him once, self-centered and crude about it – in some ways, she still was. The paranoid assertiveness was new though, and very unpleasant, and Blackarachnia had little patience for it as it was. She stood between them, throwing herself out of her chair so violently that it spun away behind her and nearly toppled over.

“If you have something to say, Sentinel, say it, because I could not care less about your idiotic superiority complex and I would really like to just sit here and enjoy a slagging drink in peace!”

If the room hadn’t been silent before, it certainly was now. Sentinel was still, for all intents and purposes, bearing the title of Magnus. Despite her short stature she held her helm so high she towered over the rest of the audience. Still, his stubborn streak kept his jaw set.

“Stand down, civilian! I have authority here!”

“Civilian?” she scoffed.

“You haven’t even finalized that process yet! I’m currently unaligned!”

“Which only makes you a bigger target for arrest!”

“For doing what? Enjoying a drink?”

Optimus stepped up behind her.

“Stop it! Everyone just…calm down. This is ridiculous.”

He was right and they both knew it. Still, emotions were running too high to immediately admit they were acting up. Staring at the floor, Blackarachnia scuffed her boot. Sentinel turned away, casting a look over the bar that made everyone watching return to their own business, albeit only in appearance.

“Sentinel,” Optimus said, rubbing a hand over his optics, “can we just enjoy our meal in peace and then deal with all this animosity later?”

Sentinel made a face, looking away.

“I’m not here to start a fight.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

Optimus sighed, long-suffering, and Blackarachnia sheepishly frowned. Whatever.

“If you aren’t here to start a fight, why are you here?”

“I was keeping an optic on you. Like I said.”

His words were clipped and nervous. Sentinel always had been terrible at hiding his true feelings. Blackarachnia was, genuinely, surprised. While she couldn’t exactly pinpoint what he was really intending to say, something was off and it was news to her. Optimus drummed his fingers against the table top.

“You want to have a drink with us, don’t you.”

“No!”

_“No!”_

Refusing to give each other the customary surprised glance as their opinions, for once, coincided, Blackarachnia and Sentinel recoiled from one another with disgust. Optimus could not have looked more frustrated if he tried, particularly because their superfluously violent reactions made it clear exactly what lay beneath.

“Then I suggest you leave us be.”

 Puffing up his chest in mock machismo, Sentinel wrinkled his face in an exaggerated expression of regal suffering.

“Of course. But I have you under watch. Don’t forget that.”

He spun and made his dramatic exit, a couple of Autotroopers who had been waiting for him at the door nodding and turning on their heels to accompany him. Blackarachnia collapsed in her seat, kneading her brow.

“What is his problem? I mean, really, did his circuits get scrambled or what?”

Taking his place across from her with considerably less theatrics but somehow managing to still exude a thick layer of sass, Optimus stirred the condensation from his glass against the table.

“Sentinel means well. I know how stupid that might sound to you right now, but he does. He just doesn’t exactly know what ‘meaning well’ means.”

Waving for the waiter, who nodded nervously, Blackarachnia opened her vents loudly.

“I’m not sure I believe he knows what ‘reality’ means at this point.”

Laughing, a little bit of bitterness tinting his tone, Optimus ordered another round from their server, plugging in the payment with little qualms this time.

“I’m not denying that he’s a bigoted idiot, but I think you know why I can’t just let things go with him.”

Their optics met.

“Not that I’m saying you have to, either. Things are different between all of us, now.”

“Yeah,” she said, “I know.”

They sat in silence for a while, and when their drinks came Blackarachnia managed to meet Optimus’s slow pace. It was not wholly uncomfortable though, their company managing to overcome the awkwardness with solidarity. Leaning her elbows across the table, she kicked Optimus’s ankle gently.

“Hey.”

“Ow! What?”

Smiling vaguely, she steepled her fingers.

“Thanks for helping me out here. I know it’s annoying.”

A bit of a snort.

“Not that I need help.”

“Oh, yeah,” Optimus winked, “because drifting bout aimlessly on Earth was really getting you somewhere.”

“I would have been fine on my own anyways!” she kicked him again, this time with real force. He jumped until his knee hit the table, sputtering.

“I still think you’re better off here. Back home.”

She leaned back again, sipping the last drops from her cube.

“You may be right.”

He was.

“That’s what friends are for.”

 

 


End file.
